Memoirs of a maverick

BarCampKerala 6: An experience

2009-10-13T08:58:00.061+05:30

So, another BarCamp just got over. I wasn't so sure I would be attending this one, and because of the same, I had registered very late. One advantage I had with this is that, the venue was Rajagiri College of Engineering, which is quite nearer, than Technopark or IIM-K. As always, the sessions page showed about 13 sessions listed. But this being my 5th BarCamp, I knew most of them wouldn't

Which Superhero are you?

2009-04-06T17:29:00.000+05:30

Your results: You are Green Lantern Green Lantern 100% Hulk 85% Batman 75% Catwoman 75% Robin 72% Superman 65% Iron Man 60% Supergirl 55% Wonder Woman 50% Spider-Man 45% The Flash 45% Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination. Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

When teens turn against their parents

2009-01-30T13:26:00.021+05:30

What would you do when your parents usually revoke your permissions, as a result of your possible mis-behaviour? Well, some guys (and gals) thought of the worst possible retaliation against their parents.A 16-year old girl went after her parents weilding two kitchen knives, after they revoked her cell-phone privileges. Her parents suspected she had been stealing money to re-charge her pre-paid

Men-Women Differences

2009-01-23T17:04:00.003+05:30

Hahaha... (c'mon, laugh with me!) :-D

BarCampKerala4: Turned out to be BoreCamp

2009-01-23T10:27:00.014+05:30

BarCamp is supposed to be a gathering of geeks, enthusiasts and other techno aficionados. Never have I thought it would call in suits (or 'suitlings'). BarCampKerala4 was organised at IIM-K. An odd choice for a geek gathering. Here's my experience of the day as well as of the camp. I woke up late that day. The train was at 6:45am, but I was awoken by my room mate at 6am. I quickly grabbed my

A Tech's Worst Nightmare

2009-01-03T13:19:00.002+05:30

There's a thread in Slashdot about the IT Act (Ammendemnt) Bill, 2006, recently passed by our own govt.From the looks of it, it is going to be worser than DMCA or anything the yankees have come up with their brain-deadness. There are already provisions to:Intercept "person-to-person" communicationProvision of blocking certain websites (although, how dare a handful decide what are we supposed to

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

2009-01-03T13:04:00.001+05:30

Its an old post, but still fun to read.

BarCamp Kerala3

2008-12-07T11:57:00.000+05:30

I'm at BarCampKerala3. I'm only 1½ hours late. :-( Its in progress... I'll update it when it comes to an end... ;-)

Geeks and cakes

2008-12-06T11:27:00.001+05:30

Well, Christmas is coming up… people are have already started preperations.For us, non-Christians, the biggest attractions are cakes (if you don't count hanging stars outside). But being a geek, how would you add your geeky touch to the cake?Here are some cakes for the geek in you.My favs? I liked the Design Cake, R2D2 Cake and the XML cake… yummy!

BarCamp Kerala 3

2008-12-01T12:06:00.001+05:30

Another year... another BarCamp...BarCampKerala3 is scheduled at CUSAT campus, on Dec 7, 2008.Interested attendees, please register here.Further details on BarCamp over here. (ATTN Moderators: somebody update this wiki page).So, see you all at BarCampKerala3 at CUSAT campus. Cheerio!

The Lord of the Rings

2008-11-29T15:52:00.000+05:30

It is said, the English-speaking world is divided into two — those who have read the Lord of the Rings, and those who are going to.Well, I was in the latter category, untill now. Now I that decided I need some progress. I bought a copy of the Lord of the Rings, 50th Anniversary edition, published by Harper-Collins from DC Books store near YWCA, Ernakulam.Well, watch out this space… I might drop

Cliched Writings

2008-11-24T14:38:00.000+05:30

At the end of the day, ever wondered, about your writing style? Actually?Here's a list of 10 Most Irritating Phareses.To top it off, BBC has come up with 20 Most Hated Cliches.After all writing is not rocket sicence, isn't it?

Men, Man, Manly!

2008-11-12T12:25:00.005+05:30

People I'm close to know me as an anti-feminist. Well, to put it correctly, I can't stand feminists — who constantly think ‘men’ are the cause of all the miseries in the world, and when all men are the Blue Planet will be a nicer place to live. If you are that sort of a person, stop reading… I have such a contempt of those type of people. What I think is that women, and generally all members

Grrrlz and SMSs

2008-11-06T10:37:00.002+05:30

Oh, so she sent you an SMS, eh?What does it read? No, what does it really read? I mean girls are all mystery, all hidden-meaning, and all i-keep-to-myself matters. So how does that SMS read up to you?Well, here's a guy who seems to have some clue (at least) to what she sent _might_ mean.Go decode what she actually sent you./me scrolls back and reads all those SMS sent by pals (ahem!) of the (

Daily typing subtilities

2008-10-07T17:15:00.007+05:30

The reason I started a blog was to teach myself how to write — how to spell the words, how to construct proper sentances, and how to let my ideas into the readers (those unfortunate fellows who happen to stumple upon this blog). But eventually, my life with Linux has also taught me to appreciate the aesthetics in ‘written documents’ (all right, type-written documents).My expose to Emacs as a

Happy Birthday GNU!!!

2008-09-03T12:08:00.000+05:30

I recieved John Sullivan's mail today:"The GNU operating system is turning 25 this year, and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has kicked off its month-long celebration of the anniversary by releasing "Happy Birthday to GNU," a short film featuring the English humorist, actor, novelist and filmmaker Stephen Fry." WOW! That must be the best B'day of the year — 25 years, huh?You can watch the

Most annoying softwares

2008-05-21T03:01:00.000+05:30

Ooh.. this is too good to resist. For those of you who missed the /. post. Here's a list of most annoying softwares out there. That's wonderful. Here goes them: Adobe Reader (I thought I was the only one who thought that) Apple (background upgrade downloads)Windows update (my favourite)RealPlayer (ha ha)Java (wee! things get better and better)Yahoo! (I *hate* Y! messenger?)Norton Antivirus (

You: In your past life

2008-05-19T22:19:00.003+05:30

Have you ever wondered who you were in your past life? Here's a site that offers to tell you the same. Maybe you're not someone who believes in re-birth. Anyway, this is what it said about me. Your past life diagnosis: I don't know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Egypt around the year 1100. Your

91.9, 93.5, 94.3

2008-05-18T22:55:00.002+05:30

Umm.. no this is not what you think it is. These are not launch codes for missiles stored in my basement. Nor are these the co-ordinates for the places to be hit by ICBMs. These are the new FM stations launched recently. I’ve always thought the radio era was over. Dead. I used to wake up, pissed off, to boring (and irritating) programmes my mom put up on the radio, right from 6am. I’

The Days I spent playing with Tiger

2008-05-01T23:27:00.002+05:30

Sadly, the MacBook Pro was duely returned to its owner this afternoon. The MBP was with me for over 3 weeks now. He had ‘dumped’ it with me for me to learn it and teach him how to do ‘stuff’ with Mac OS X. But even after I did tweak around the OS and had my share of fun with the world’s most sexiest OS, I still think GNU/Linux is what suits my tastes – perfectly. The MacBook Pro 17” with a

A tech lover's call to arms

2008-04-19T18:05:00.000+05:30

For years, I've wanted to write this piece, but for one reason or another, I didn't think it was the right time to do it. But now, as I look at technology zealots like myself who have been forced to submit to the will of the vocal minority that has no idea what this industry is all about, I think it's time. A call-to-arms at CNET http://www.cnet.com/8301-13506_1-9922350-17.html.

Total Black Out!

2008-03-18T12:51:00.013+05:30

I'm experiencing what could be best described as 'Every Geek's Worst Nightmare', namely, his Computer Being Stuck by Lightning!My laptop powerbrick had been having some trouble and I was unable to charge my laptop. Now that my desktop and BSNL Wi-Fi modem being fried by the stupid lightning — I'm experiencing a Total Black Out!I'm sorry to all those folks to whom I cannot mail, scrap in Orkut,

/etc/init.d/network start

2008-02-27T23:24:00.002+05:30

Hurray! I should thank my parents for the greatest thing they've done to me (in the recent times, of course). They've availed me a Net connection. What more can you ask for? The connection is BSNL DataOne, slow as it always is (since when has net been fast enough?), is equipped with a WiFi modem. Kewl! The configuration is a simple point-browser-at-ip thingy. The router is a good one —

Valentine's Day: In love with Xfce

2008-02-14T13:26:00.005+05:30

My laptop power brick got burned out day before yesterday. Since then, I've been unable to perform anything even trivial with my ~50mins battery backup. I've been thinking about replacing the battery too, but since the warranty got expired I think I might have to shell out cash from my pocket. Now that I've switched my attention to my half-abandoned desktop, I've been in search of some

BarCampKerala2: Great minds @ Work!

2008-02-03T13:47:00.002+05:30

I was literally stuck with a so-called corporate training programme from Turning Point. So I considered it a relief to jump off at the first chance and let off some steam. I originally considered to take up a couple of presentations. But due to this hectic schedule I wasn't able to. Training wasn't so effective either. Some people said that their attitude had changed. I don't know. I didn't

BarCampKerala2: scheduled in Kochi

2008-01-28T11:02:00.000+05:30

According to Wikipedia, "BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants..." I've always looked forward to meeting like-minded people who are interested in technology and other so-called geeky stuff. Again according to Wikipedia, Bar Camp discusses about the web, related open-source technologies,

RMS at UC college, Aluva

2008-01-11T10:09:00.001+05:30

"The solution to all your computer problem is Windows, " thus spake RMS. "Either throw Windows out of your computer, or throw your computer out of the window!" After keeping as waiting for 5-10 mins, where he (as I suspect) must have got into filming the chenda melam at the entrance, I saw the man behind everything who's everything to the Free Software movement. He's the enigmatic,

Munnar Trip: A Suprise B'day Party

2007-12-12T16:58:00.001+05:30

Now that our viva is over, we thought that we'd shake a few rules. We planned a trip to Munnar. Munnar is where the fun is... A surprise was in store for me... Soooo... another B'day passes by. I'm aging :-(

Prizes form FSM-2: Qmail Quickstarter

2007-12-05T16:58:00.000+05:30

FSM guys have kept me waiting for a long time. I even tried mailing them a couple of times. But compared to many other Indian magazines, they have a prompt customer relationship department. My copy of "Qmail Quickstarter" was shipped from Birmingham, UK. It arrived yesterday, in all its glory. Moreover, I got my laptop yesterday after nearly a month of keeping it at the service center. I'll

DC Books Quiz 1st Prize

2007-11-03T09:55:00.000+05:30

It was a usual (boring?) day at the college. I had no intention of how to spend it wisely. The first hour went by on its own, if not a lengthy lecture by the HOD. It was during the second hour that things got out of hand... It was Pokémon that came to me and informed me that we'd have to go to DC Books Quiz at Ernakulam — without any bloody preparation? I thought — not that we "prepare" a

Life with Nokia 3110c

2007-10-23T16:02:00.000+05:30